Friday, November 11, 2016

Alex Gibbons, Student Leader of the Arch Street Teen Center

The following
blog post by Olivia Luntz, Greenwich
Oral History Project volunteer and senior at Greenwich High School is derived
from an interview conducted by OHP interviewer RenéeLux last spring. The interview is
one of four commemorating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Arch Street Teen
Center and is with narrator Alex Gibbons, president of the Arch Street
Teen Center board from 2014 until his graduation in June of this year

Interior of the Greenwich Arch Street Teen Center

Alex Gibbons got his start at the Arch Street Teen Center
by attending weekend dances when he was in middle school. He appreciated that
the dances enabled him to meet people from outside his private school
community. In his freshman year of high school, Gibbons sat in on his first
teen board meeting and “really connected with just the message of the place and
what it was doing for our town.” After serving on the board for two years, he
became president in his junior year. Gibbons explains that the board is made up
of twenty-five to thirty high school students, with about fifteen from
Greenwich High School and another fifteen representing private schools. During
weekly meetings they plan events and discuss how to advertise these events to
fellow teens. As president, Gibbons ran most of the meetings and assisted the
executive director, Kyle Silver, in keeping the center running. But Gibbons’
involvement with Arch Street didn’t end there. As a musician he jammed at the
center with other kids and even opened for a featured band. However, Gibbons believes
he has benefitted most from his involvement as a public servant. He values
working with different people and nonprofits, scheduling events, and he
recognizes that working with different organizations is not something most teens
have an opportunity to do.

While Gibbons was working for Arch Street, the center
expanded its programming to appeal to a wider audience. In addition to the
flagship dances, the center now offers a variety of activities and events. Over
the summer Arch Street offers paddle boarding, and during the school year yoga
classes are available. In addition, the center recently opened its own café,
the Greenwich Grind. Although Gibbons was not sure about the changes at first,
so far, he admits, the feedback has been positive. “I’ve been used to having
only dances this whole time, and I didn’t know …on your average Wednesday after
school, are teens going to be coming down to hang out at Arch Street?” But, as
it turns out, they do come. There they would be: “a bunch of middle schoolers,
hanging out and eating food and playing ping pong and kind of enjoying
themselves.” Overall, Gibbons is pleased with the success of these new
programs, believing they will help Arch Street appeal to those teens less
interested in the dances and more interested in other activities, therefore helping
to broaden the center’s base of teens.

Alex Gibbons

However, no matter the success of Arch Street’s other
programs, Gibbons still asserts that the most popular events are the dances,
each selling an average of four hundred and fifty tickets. Gibbons believes it
is the dances that best help Arch Street accomplish its mission of providing a
drug-and alcohol-free environment for teens. Being able to attend fun events or
just hang out in a substance-free zone is especially beneficial for middle
school students, as it helps delay exposure to drugs and alcohol. Gibbons notes
that Arch Street has very strict security to ensure that no substances are
brought into the center and there are always trained EMTs on site during dances
in case any teens arrive showing symptoms of alcohol poisoning.

There are still further goals to reach, according to
Gibbons. Gibbons notes that the high school dances are most popular among teens
attending private school in Greenwich and that in the future he would like to
see a more diverse crowd in attendance. “Just because your dance is selling
out, that doesn’t mean you’re necessarily fulfilling the mission of the Teen
Center.” He adds that a lot of the teen board’s programming focuses on trying
to reach people at Greenwich High School and that he enjoys it when he sees
students from public and private school interact. Gibbons notes that the middle
school dances and the Greenwich Grind are popular with public school kids, and
he is hopeful that the high school dances, too, will soon become popular with
all of the teens in the Greenwich community.

In addition to reaching out to teens, Arch Street also
strives to educate parents and the community. For example, Arch Street has
recently introduced a speaker series, which is aimed at parents and teens. These
talks focus on topics such as helping teens with the college process, managing stress
levels, and talking to teens about drugs. The Winter Wonderland event last
December was another successful community program, one of which Gibbons is
particularly proud since it was entirely teen planned. In order to attract
families of elementary school kids, the planners provided for activities such
as a bouncy castle, an arts-and-crafts table, and a fire truck for kids to explore.
There were also photo-ops with Santa and the Grinch and lots of food. Gibbons
hopes that this event will become a tradition at Arch Street, bringing the
community together for years to come.

Overall, Gibbons believes that Arch Street is not only
valuable to teens as a place that is drug-and alcohol-free but also as a place
where everyone is equal. “It kind of levels the playing field,” he says, giving
teens a chance to interact with students from other schools. He is quick to
stress that he, too, has benefitted from this opportunity. Gibbons adds that
there aren’t many events outside of Arch Street that would bring together teens
from the different high schools in Greenwich, and this is exactly what makes
Arch Street special. Gibbons ends his interview by noting that Arch Street is
lucky to have such generous donors that have kept the Center going for
twenty-five years, and he hopes Greenwich will see Arch Street continue for at
least another twenty-five years.

And we in
Greenwich are indeed lucky to have young future leaders like Alex Gibbons and Olivia
Luntz among us.